TEHRAN- The managing director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) says that the national gas transferring network covers 95 percent of the country’s population, IRNA reported.

Making the remarks in a video conference with some NIGC directors on Tuesday, Hassan Montazer Torbati said that 95 percent is a big figure.

Iran is currently producing over 810 mcm of natural gas daily which is mostly used inside the country for the domestic sector and also as fuel for the power plants and a small portion is also exported to the neighboring countries like Iraq.

Currently, about 30,000 villages with 4.6 million households as well as 1,148 cities with over 18 million households are connected to the national gas network in Iran.

Gas is supplied to 97 percent of people in the urban areas and 82 percent of people in the rural regions, according to Torbati.

Last month, the NIGC’s former dispatching director said the transmission capacity of the national gas network has risen to one billion cubic meters per day (bcm/d).

Noting that several projects were carried out last calendar year (ended on March 19) to increase the country's gas network capacity, the official said: "Most of the mentioned projects have been implemented in the ninth national line, most of which will be operational this year."

Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana further mentioned the South Pars gas field’s new platforms going operational in the current year and noted that with the increase of the national gas network’s capacity the new production capacity from the South Pars platforms won’t be idle.

“The country’s [natural] gas production capacity is going to be increased to one billion cubic meters per day and now the national network is capable of transmitting this capacity,” he said.

MA/MA